Happy December! In keeping with our annual ISD tradition, we will soon begin our Holiday Season food drive. This year's drive will run from Monday, December 7 through Friday, December 18. Your donations will benefit Neighbor to Neighbor. The list of families served by this local nonprofit organization continues to grow, so the need is great. As a way to make the food drive even more meaningful to our students, you may want to encourage your children to purchase canned goods, cereal, pasta, etc. with their allowance money, or with money they have earned in other ways. Thank you for supporting this campaign.

 

This is also the "season" for parent/teacher conferences. As a reminder, we have another early release (1:15PM) day on Tuesday, December 8. This is to allow time for afternoon conferences to occur. Evening conferences are slated for next Thursday, December 10. Conference appointments can be challenging to reschedule, so please make every effort to attend your appointment as scheduled. Of course, if something does come up suddenly, please be sure to notify the school office so the message can be communicated to the teacher. (Teachers cannot always easily access their emails during the school day.)

 

Report cards will be distributed and reviewed at the conferences. In addition, parents of students in Grades 1 through 5 will receive reports detailing their child's performance on the STAR assessments in reading and math. As with all individual pieces of data, these reports provide snapshots of how a student is progressing with regard to learning the expected curriculum. Within the STAR reports, the key piece of information to look for is Percentile Rank (PR). The 50th percentile represents the exact midpoint of the average range. Therefore, a Percentile Rank above 50 indicates a performance in the average to above-average range. Anything lower indicates a performance in the average to
below-average range. Teachers will determine if a student's performance on an assessment is a deviation from, or
a confirmation of, the student's daily class performance. We monitor the progress of every student very closely and make adjustments to their instructional programs as necessary.

 

As of this week, students in Grades 2 through 5 are now allowed to take home their iPads if their teachers assign tasks that require the use of these learning tools. Students have completed the digital citizenship classes and the appropriate apps, filters, and security checks have all been installed on the iPads.

 

As part of the Grade 5 health curriculum, the puberty and AIDS classes will take place in the next two weeks. If you are the parent of a fifth grader and you were not able to attend the informational meeting held this week, you may request to view a recording of the meeting and/or the video the students will be watching. Please contact me if you wish to do so.

Terry Ricci